Peter Tucci

For decades, the federal budget deficit has been a strong issue for Republicans because voters believe that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to balance budgets. That’s why Mitt Romney is hoping that the large budget deficits of the past five years will weigh heavily on voters’ minds in November, while President Obama is hoping that voters will instead focus on issues like his contraception mandate and the membership policies of Georgia country clubs. (more)

I’ve always found it interesting that our society denies children the vote even though they’re the ones with the most at stake in our elections. After all, they have the longest left to live. (more)

The Daily Caller published more than 2,000 op-eds this year. I recently combed through all of them and put together a wholly subjective list of the 20 most interesting ones --- the top 1%, so to speak. They’re listed in chronological order. (Here’s last year’s list.) (more)

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue thinks we should suspend federal elections until the economy improves. (more)

The U.S. Constitution is the tea party movement’s sacred text. No tea party rally ends without some speaker (or several) extolling the Constitution and condemning Obamacare for violating it. Sarah Palin has a picture of the 224-year-old document on her tour bus. And in January, at tea partiers’ behest, the 112th Congress opened with a reading of it. (more)

In June 2002, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the federal government’s long-term budget outlook. The report predicted that federal spending, which had hovered around 20% of GDP since World War II, would reach 23.8% of GDP in 2040, 30% of GDP in the late 2050s and 40% of GDP --- double the postwar average --- around 2075. (more)

Until 38 years ago, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. Today, gay marriage is legal in six states and the District of Columbia, and 53% of Americans think gay marriage should be legal everywhere. The gay marriage fight isn’t over, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that gay marriage activists have already won. It’s just a matter of time before gay marriage is legal nationwide. The question is: What cause will civil libertarians embrace next? (more)

Twitter is both incredible and depressing. (more)

The media often looks to the unemployment rate for clues about the economy’s health. If the unemployment rate is high, the economy is weak; if it’s low, the economy is strong. If the unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is improving; if it’s climbing, the economy is getting worse. The current unemployment rate is 9.1% (which is high), but it’s down from a peak of 10.1% a year and a half ago (an improvement). That’s why the media consensus is that the economy is weak but gradually getting stronger. (more)

I can name a lot of liberal pop-culture blogs and magazines. My favorite is probably Slate. I don’t have a favorite conservative pop-culture blog or magazine, though. Perhaps that’s because so few conservative pop-culture blogs and magazines exist. In fact, one of the most obvious differences between the universe of liberal commentary and the universe of conservative commentary is that cultural analysis pervades the former but is almost absent from the latter. (more)

California has it all: a great climate, natural beauty, world-class universities, a unique cultural appeal, and a location along the thriving Pacific Rim. People should be flocking to the Golden State, and for a while they were: between 1940 and 1990, 12.4 million Americans immigrated to California (in addition to millions of Asians and Latin Americans). (more)

For the first time in years, both Democrats and Republicans are talking about spending cuts. But what should be cut? The Daily Caller asked political pundits, policy analysts and activists from across the political spectrum which federal department or agency they would most like to see cut. Here’s what they said: (more)

The Republican Party is as strong today as it has been in decades. However, it faces several long-term challenges. One of those challenges is navigating the gay marriage issue. (more)

For years, studies have shown that conservative states -- especially conservative Southern states -- receive a disproportionate share of federal benefits. Mississippi, for example, reaps $2.83 in federal spending for every dollar it sends to Washington. Meanwhile, many states in the liberal Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast send far more to Washington than they get back. Delaware only gets $0.40 back for every dollar it sends to Washington. (more)

For years, newspapers have struggled to cope with the challenges of the Internet age: declining print circulations, the evaporation of the market for personal ads, and advertisers’ gradual shift from print to online media. But that may be about to change, because The New York Times has finally found a solution to the newspaper industry’s troubles: preying on the guilt and ignorance of loyal readers. (more)

The other day, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a column in which he posed the question, “What if we’re not broke?” Dionne concluded that we’re not actually broke and that “a phony metaphor [the idea that we’re broke] is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.” (more)

In November, the GOP made major inroads into the South -- a region the party already dominated. Republicans now control 9 of the South’s 11 governor’s mansions and 131 of its 155 Senate and House seats.* (more)

Some people shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I’m one of those people. I’d also throw most of my friends into that category. In fact, of the 218 million eligible voters in the U.S., I think 25 million of us should be disenfranchised, and all for the same reason: We’re between the ages 18 and 24. The truth is that young people aren’t fit for voting, which is why a constitutional amendment needs to be passed raising the voting age to 25. (more)

In 2007, Texas State Senator Dan Patrick proposed paying Texas women who were considering getting abortions to instead carry their babies to term and then give them up for adoption. Patrick’s bill never made it out of committee, and Patrick was ridiculed for his efforts. (more)

Christians have been debating their religion’s political implications since Jesus’s crucifixion 2,000 years ago. At the center of most modern arguments about Christianity’s political implications is a simple question that’s difficult to answer: Is Christianity conservative or socialist? (more)